Banner's Disease
by Oi-Watch-It-Spaceman
Summary: The Doctor contracts bacteria that causes him to become a danger to Rose. Basically, the Doctor becomes the Hulk. Warning: angst and Doctor!whump, but nothing major. DoctorxRose.
1. Chapter 1

**Ok, I don't really know where this came from, I think it had something to do with the shock that Natasha (Black Widow) was in after she saw Bruce transform into the Hulk in The Avengers. Couple that with the idea that I really wanted to write a bit of a fic where the Doctor is danger to Rose, and here we are. Basically, it's the Doctor meets the Hulk. It was meant to be just a funny bit of fluff, but really there's quite a bit of angst and Doctor!whump, so be prepared. Enjoy!**

"What is it?"

"There's...something."

"Oh brilliant, it's a good thing you aren't being really vague or I wouldn't have known what on earth you were talking about."

The Doctor looked up from where he had been examining the TARDIS controls, to see Rose looking extremely not amused.

"Hey, there's no need for sarcasm!" he protested and Rose sighed, folding her arms and continuing to stare at him.

"Are you gonna tell me or not?"

"Well it's hard to explain, it's like there's something tickling at the back of my mind, something that shouldn't be there, but I can't tell what it is."

"Did you forget to put the handbrake on the TARDIS?" Rose smirked, and now it was the Doctor's turn to stare at her.

"Rose please, we're in flight; of course I don't need the handbrake on. No, there's definitely something wrong, maybe some sort of foreign bacteria or something."

Rose wandered around the TARDIS console until she was standing right next to the Doctor, peering at the monitor and trying (unsuccessfully) to make out some of the symbols showing on the screen. "So you've got some sort of bacteria in you – like you've got a cold or something?"

"Sort of," the Doctor replied, continuing to examine the screen and pressing a few buttons, "it's a bit different than simple human bacteria; if it's affecting my brain in this way then that means it's probably transferred telepathically, so you should be fine."

"Yes, because of course I was pretending to care about the alien bacteria in your brain, when actually I was only concerned about myself."

The Doctor elbowed her in the ribs. "I was actually reassuring myself, I'll have you know. Superior Timelord biology means that I'll probably be able to fight it off no problem, but your rubbish human immune system would probably struggle."

"It's funny," said Rose, leaning back against the console and folding her arms again, "even in the midst of being all concerned about my safety and really quite sweet, you still manage to brag about your superiority and massage your massive ego."

The Doctor chose to ignore this remark. "There, I'm running a scan that should pinpoint the bacteria and let me know how long it's going to take for my body to fight it off."

Rose twisted her hands together as she waited and stared up at the ceiling. She was a bit tired from their trek around a jungle planet that morning, and her leg still ached from where the Doctor had shoved her into a tree to avoid getting jumped on by that planet's version of a tiger. She sighed, rubbing her eyes and avoiding the Doctor's eyes - she could tell he was looking at her with concern. He often had to remind her to sleep, their lifestyle meant that days and nights didn't happen in the way she had always been used to, and more than once the Doctor had turned around to find her fast asleep in the captain's chair in the console room. Rose enjoyed these occasions because, even though she wasn't aware of what was going on at the time, she always woke up with the Doctor's long, brown coat draped over her. It smelled like him and, even though she was sleeping in a chair that couldn't be described as "comfy", Rose always slept better with the Doctor's coat as a blanket, her fingers curled tightly around the collar.

"Stop that, I'm not going to sleep until the scan has finished."

"Stop what?"

"Stop looking at me like you always do when you think I need sleep, right now we're worrying about you, once the scan has finished and we know you're not going to drop down dead then maybe I'll take a nap in the chair."

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Fine then. And for the record, I wasn't worrying about you; I just want to make sure that you have enough sleep so that next time we're off on a trip you don't nearly get eaten by an alien tiger because you're not paying attention!"

A loud beeping from the TARDIS console distracted Rose from her next scathing comment, and she peered at the screen as the Doctor began to read the results.

"No no no no no!" The Doctor had grabbed the screen and pulled it towards him, reading the symbols frantically, hands reaching up to grab fistfuls of his hair.

"What is it?"

The Doctor looked at her, hands falling down from his head to hang by his sides. "Sorry about that, overreacted just a little bit, just call me a drama queen."

"I do, frequently, behind your back." Her joke was feeble, but Rose could still see a tiny amount of panic behind the Doctor's eyes, and she needed to reassure him that everything was normal. "But what is it?"

"It's Banner's disease."

Rose nodded. "OK...what's Banner's disease."

The Doctor sighed, rubbing his eyes. "it's hard to explain, you're probably not going to believe it."

Rose raised an eyebrow. "Listen Doctor," she said, "if I can't believe about this one disease after everything I've seen with you, then feel free to kick me off the TARDIS this instant!"

The Doctor smiled, though Rose noticed, unnervingly, that it didn't reach his eyes. "Well, OK. Did you ever watch 'The Incredible Hulk'?"

Rose was incredibly confused, but she answered the question. "Bits of it? I mean, I know basically what happens."

"And what happens?"

"Well...Bruce Banner gets hit with radiation or something like that, and he ends up turning into a massive green monster every time he gets angry and smashing stuff."

"Correct. Well, in essentials. The point, however, is that the comic books, the films and everything else weren't actually fiction. Well, they were, but the original germ of the story came from a notebook that _someone, _who shall not be named, left on Earth in the past accidentally through no fault of his own."

"So you're saying you started the idea for the Hulk?"

The Doctor nodded, and Rose was amused to see that, even in this situation, he was still looking slightly smug. "The real story comes from the scientist Bruce Banner, who was a human working on a planet colonised by humans in the year 4027. He was doing some experiments regarding human emotions but something went wrong."

"Doctor, no offence, but you really don't look good," Rose interrupted. The Doctor's eyes were over bright, his body was tense and his hands were beginning to shake.

"Just hear me out Rose; you've got to understand this." Rose was shocked by the urgency with which he spoke. "He created a bacteria which only affects telepaths, it works its way into the emotion centre of the brain and remains dormant until there is a surge of emotion, most often anger. When the emotion—"

"Oh my god," Rose was beginning to grin, "you're telling me that there is bacteria that makes you 'hulk out'? That you get angry and turn into a green monster?"

"It's not always green, but yes, that it what I'm telling you."

"Well it's a good thing all you'll have to do is stay calm and you'll be fine. You mean that you would actually, like, go all big and green and 'you won't like me when I'm angry!'?" Rose was laughing now, imagining a big green version of the Doctor smashing up buildings, throwing cars and roaring.

"Really Rose, it's not actually a laughing matter."

Rose's giggle stopped mid flow. The Doctor was hunched over, breathing heavily. Rose moved towards him, determined to help him in some way, to stop his pain, just to grab him and hold him and tell him he would be fine.

"No," he shouted, backing away a couple of steps, face contorted into a grimace. Rose jumped back, shocked. The Doctor barely ever shouted at her, his face was a mix of anger and pain and she had no idea what was happening to him.

"Doctor, what can I do? Doctor, tell me what you need me to do!"Rose shouted, voice getting louder and louder as the Doctor groaned in pain, falling to his knees.

"Rose, I can fight it but not for long. You've got to get away. Find somewhere to hide, just get as far away from me as you can! I'm a Timelord, I can fight off the infection but it's going to take a while, I'll be dangerous and I won't be able to control my actions!"

"But you said it fed on anger!" Rose was panicking now – the Doctor couldn't be a danger to her, the Doctor always got them out of danger (well, apart from when it was Rose doing the rescuing.) "You were perfectly fine a minute ago, you were laughing!"

The Doctor laughed: the sound was harsh and inhuman. "The things I've done, Rose, the amount of people I haven't been able to save? There's enough anger in me that it doesn't need to be right there on the surface, this thing can find it and it's using it." He clenched his fists tighter, knuckles turning white. "Rose, I can't stop it, get away!"

The Doctor's back arched and Rose heard a cracking noise as his face screwed up in pain. She took a deep breath, standing still and controlling the shaking in her hands. "I am not leaving you here," she said, as calmly as she could, though it was hard not to lose control when she saw the Doctor in this much pain, "there must be something I can do."

The Doctor shook his head furiously, managing to open his eyes and lock them directly onto Rose's. "All you can do is wait, my body'll fight it off and I'll return to normal but until then you've got to get out of my way."

"No, I can't—"

"Please, Rose!" the Doctor shouted desperately, still managing to look at her even though his body was beginning to convulse with the pain, "please just go, I am not going to hurt you, you can't let that happen, just get away! I'll be back before you know it but you have _got _to get away from here _now_!"

Rose couldn't take her eyes from his face as it contorted, his eyes squeezing shut and his teeth gritted. "GO!" he bellowed, and Rose sprinted towards the corridor, pausing in the doorway and turning back. The Doctor's body was changing, his arms and legs bulging, clothes ripping, his skin developing a tinge of green as he screamed.

"You have got to be kidding me," said Rose weakly as she witnessed the transformation of the Doctor, hardly able to believe that something she had thought would be funny a couple of minutes ago could be so utterly terrifying.

**This was just supposed to be a little one shot, but I've extended it to two (or possibly three) chapters. Hope you liked it! Feel free to review :)**

**P.S. my tumblr url is donna-and-her-spaceman. It's very Doctor Who and DoctorxRose centred. Just in case you wanted to know...  
**


	2. Chapter 2

**Well here's the second and last part, I hope you liked the first one. Well, I would hope if you've got to the second chapter then you liked the first one, but who knows? Anyway, enjoy! :P**

The worst part was that it still looked like the Doctor. It might be large green monster, bulging muscles and enormous fists, but there were elements of the Doctor still in there. The uncontrollable brown hair, the remnants of his suit that were still somehow managing to cling on even after his body had expanded, the shape of his face was still there and Rose was sure that, though she was too far away to be really certain, there were still freckles sprinkled over the monster's cheeks.

The hulk Doctor turned towards Rose, and she hoped desperately that there wasn't enough Doctor left in there to realise what he was about to try and do. One huge green fist came crashing down, shattering the captain's chair, and Rose was off down the corridor, tripping and nearly falling, banging off the walls as she rounded the corners. She could feel the TARDIS gently buzzing at the back of her mind, as it always did when it was talking to her, urging her forwards. She picked up her pace, always moving faster, on the lookout for a room that looked like a good hiding place. The TARDIS had a habit of switching 'round the rooms and Rose flew past doors she did and didn't recognise as she tried not to focus on the pounding of heavy footsteps that was getting louder and louder.

Rose didn't dare to look behind her as she ran, but she took a peek back as she turned a corner. The green monster was gaining on her, its strides more than twice as long as her own, its horribly familiar face twisted with rage.

Rose rounded another corner and came upon a heavy looking wooden door. Thinking that it was as good a place as any – she was not going to be able to keep running for much longer – she wrenched open the door and darted inside, closing it behind her. The room was dark, but as she entered the lights slowly faded up. Rose turned around, searching for the door lock but there was only a bolt. She slid it across, mentally asking the TARDIS to lock the door and just hoping that the monster would run past.

"Oh for god's sake," Rose muttered as she heard the monster's footsteps stop, just outside the door. She stayed pressed against the door, horribly reminded of their adventure with the werewolf in 1879. The fact that she was facing a monster without the Doctor there was frightening, but the fact that the Doctor _was _the monster she was hiding from made her feel as if her veins were filled with ice cold water.

**_BANG_**

Rose flew forwards as one of the monster's fists connected with the door. She pressed herself back against the door, looking around the room for anything that could be used to hold the door shut. On close inspection, Rose was suddenly aware that she must be in the Doctor's bedroom. She had looked for it before but the TARDIS had never let her find it. There was a pair of old converse in the corner, and an open wardrobe in which Rose could see the Doctor's black tux. Presumably he kept it here so he didn't have to go searching through the TARDIS wardrobe every time he needed it. There was an enormous wooden desk covered with books, various wires and chunks of unidentifiable metal. The double bed was covered with TARDIS blue sheets, with another stack of books next to it that was higher than the lamp that stood on the small wooden table on the other side of the bed.

Another thump on the door caused Rose to go sprawling on the carpet, and she immediately returned to her earlier task of finding something to bar the door. She dragged herself up from the carpet and ran to the chair in front of the desk. She cursed loudly in all the languages she could think of when the heavy leather chair wouldn't budge.

The monster (Rose wouldn't let herself think of it as the Doctor) bashed the door yet again, and this time Rose could hear the unmistakeable sound of wood beginning to crack. Why couldn't he have a super-strong alien metal door? Why did he have to have a wooden one? She could feel the TARDIS in her mind, the apologetic buzzing that told her that, no matter how hard the TARDIS tried to lock the door, if the monster ripped it off the hinges there was nothing she could do.

Rose sank to the floor, feeling so helpless and defeated and just wishing that the Doctor was here. There was another crash on the door, and Rose blinked back the tears in her eyes, scrambling to the wardrobe, flinging herself inside and pulling the door closed behind her. She stood as still as possible, trying to breathe quietly. All she could hear was the beating of her heart – it seemed like it was reverberating through her entire body.

At the sound of the crash that had to be the door flying off its hinges, Rose closed her eyes, feeling the tears trickle down her cheeks as she realised what was going to happen to her. She could hear the monster moving around the room, heavy footsteps clunking, the crunching sound as its feet stood on bits of broken door.

Rose pressed her face to the crack between the two doors, trying to see what the monster was doing. She had seen this scene in so many films. Normally it was the moment that the music stopped, the tension built, and there were a few seconds before something happened that normally made Rose jump out of her seat. She held her breath as she saw the monster move across the room. It walked out of her sight, and Rose was sure that she heard the Doctor's precariously stacked pile of books go flying, before a loud crashing that Rose knew was the desk being overturned.

She was going to have to make a run for it. Rose knew that, if the monster was destroying all the furniture in the room, it couldn't be long before her hiding place was in pieces. She had read Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and there was no way she was going to get stuck in a "troll in the girls' bathroom" situation like Hermione.

Holding her breath, Rose put her hand flat against the door, waiting for the right moment. She took her chance and slammed the door open, sprinting across the shards of wood and down the corridor, not daring to look behind her. She didn't need to look. She could hear the monstrous footsteps, feel the reverberating through the floor, and she knew that it couldn't be long before this thing was on her.

Rose's lungs were burning - she couldn't keep this pace up for much longer.

She heard the footsteps behind her falter, a roar and a choking noise taking their place. She kept running, not looking back until she heard something that made her blood freeze in her veins: her own name being called down the corridor.

Rose turned around, hoping against hope that she had heard correctly.

Standing down the corridor from her was the Doctor. He looked a lot worse for wear – she could already see bruises beginning to form on his arms. He was still wear scraps of his clothing, dark blue boxers showing underneath his pinstriped trousers, ripped beyond recognition. He was still wearing his pale blue shirt, though it was stretched and torn and hanging open - the buttons were all missing. His hair was an insane mess, he looked pale and weak and utterly exhausted.

"Rose," he said again, and she bit her lip. She wasn't scared of him – she knew that the bacteria must be gone by now – but she was still in shock, for want of a better term. Half an hour ago they had been sitting in the console room, laughing and joking as they always did, and before she knew it she had been running for her life from the person she trusted most of all.

"Rose, it's OK, it's gone. I am so, so sorry." The Doctor took a few slow steps towards her; Rose was reminded of someone trying to approach a rabbit without startling it. Rose stayed absolutely still, staring at the Doctor as he continued to approach her. He stopped a couple of feet away, and Rose could see in his eyes the fear that she had lost her trust in him. She took a moment, breathing deeply, before she smiled up at him.

"Well," she said, glad that her voice did not crack, "you certainly gave the Hulk a run for his money."

The Doctor grinned and held out his arms and Rose threw herself into them. He swung her around, lifting her off her feet and laughing with her. Rose was not exactly sure at what moment her laughter turned to sobs, all she knew was that she was clinging to the Doctor, tears soaking into his shirt collar.

The Doctor stroked her hair, and she could feel him shaking, either from tears or from shock at what had just happened. He leant back against the wall, and for a few moments there was relative silence.

"Did you know what was happening?" Rose asked, afraid of the answer. For a moment she didn't get one, but the movement of the Doctor's head where it rested on her shoulder confirmed her fears.

"I was there, I could feel it happening," whispered the Doctor, pulling away and cupping Rose's cheek in his hand, "I couldn't stop myself, I wanted to smash everything, just to destroy the whole TARDIS and...you. I wanted to destroy you." He fiercely pulled her back into a hug, as though he was hoping that he could fix what he had just done if he held her tight enough.

"The TARDIS was helping me the whole time; you would never have been able to hurt me."

"Rose, I nearly did! You're clever, you managed to get away, but if I hadn't been able to fight it off for a few more minutes then I might've killed you!"

"Hey, that's not fair; you were far too busy smashing up your own bedroom to even notice I'd gone, at least for a few seconds!" Rose's voice was wobbly and kept breaking, and her feeble attempt at a joke had not had any effect on the Doctor whatsoever. She fell silent, enjoying the feeling of his arms in their tattered shirt sleeves wrapping around her.

"You certainly managed to ruin a perfectly good suit," Rose muttered, and was relieved to hear a chuckle.

"Yeah, I did," the Doctor said, "it's a good thing I've got a spare one of these, or I might be having to sew this one back together."

"Good luck," was Rose's answer, and they both laughed – feebly, it had to be said, but it was still a laugh, and Rose could feel her heart rate beginning to slow as she realised it was over. He was back, and he wasn't going anywhere.

They slowly broke apart, the Doctor taking Rose's hand as though it was second nature (she supposed it was) and they walked back to the control room in silence, Rose still trying to comprehend the events of the last half an hour. As they wandered back into the control room Rose was struck by the lack of debris scattered around the place.

"Hey, I saw you smash the chair, where did this one come from?"

"I told you, the TARDIS is alive – it can grow another chair like that,"-he clicked his fingers – " and besides, where are you going to nap in between trips if we don't have a nice uncomfortable chair in the console room?"

Rose grinned at this, walking over and collapsing into the chair. She watched with amusement as the Doctor looked down at himself, seeming to notice for the first time just how little he was wearing.

"I'll...just... go and get changed, then," he said awkwardly, before walking back across the control room, picking up scraps of his clothing on the way. Rose smiled a little before sitting back in the chair, staring up at the central column and sighing. She could feel the adrenaline draining from her system, leaving her limbs feeling heavy and useless.

Rose curled up in the seat, knowing that she needed sleep after what she had just been through and yet she was unwilling to go back to her own room and leave the Doctor.

She drifted into a doze, waking up when she heard the Doctor's footsteps on the grating. Rose kept her eyes closed, letting the Doctor think she was asleep, even if she wasn't. She could feel the Doctor coming closer to her, and tried not to move as she felt his long coat (thankfully he had not been wearing it during the transformation) drape over her. She felt a soft kiss on her forehead, and the Doctor's voice whispering sadly.

"I'm so sorry Rose. I am so, so sorry."

Rose felt a crease form between her eyebrows as she tried to stop herself from getting up and hugging him. He clearly didn't want her to see him like this. She felt the Doctor move away from her, but not before a tear trickled down her cheek. Rose bit her lip as she realised that it wasn't one of her tears.

**Woah, that was a little less happy than I intended, but I hope you enjoyed it anyway :)**


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